Continuing the look back at previous election years here is a panel discussion, part of the American Forum Of The Air series first broadcast on July 13, 1952, right after the close of the Republican Convention in Chicago and just before the opening of Democratic Convention, also in Chicago.

This panel consists of high ranking officials in both the RNC and DNC along with some of the earliest pollsters to engage in political races. Archibald Crossley, who pre-dated Gallup in his Crossley Poll and who also coined the phrase "ratings", along with Elmo Roper, political analyst and early commentator for CBS Radio join RNC's Albert "Ab" Herman and the DNC's India Edwards in a discussion that illustrates how little the political landscape has changed, but in some areas just how much it has changed.

The issues - then as now; taxes, defense, employment and corruption in Government. The races: the age old plea for a "clean campaign". The Politics: a much more pronounced and powerful Liberal wing of the Republican Party, which I had completely forgotten was instrumental in securing the nomination for Gen. Eisenhower. The Democrats; the Southern bloc.

Then as now there was talk of bitter factional splits within the GOP - the Internationalist/Liberal wing of the GOP in favor of Ike and the Conservative "base" in favor of Robert A. Taft. One gets the feeling Nixon was brought on board as a peace offering to soothe the arch conservatives in the ranks and bring about party unity.

Since, at the time of this broadcast there hadn't yet been the Democratic Convention (a week later), there was still speculation as to who the nominee would be and who the nominee's running mate would eventually become. It's interesting that, within the ranks there was talk about India Edwards, the vice-Chairman (chairperson) of the DNC as a possible vice-Presidential candidate, thus making her the first woman as running mate.

Then as now the whole question of the Independent Voter and just who they were was on the panelists minds. The Independents, it was determined, could swing a vote in either direction and they were hard to pin down.

Some things never change - certainly the ritual doesn't. The talk about long and bloody primary campaigns and the desire for less mud slinging seem completely relevant. It has always been and probably always will be about taxes, about employment and about corruption.

And that's what they were talking about in Picking a Winner on The American Forum Of The Air for July 13, 1952.

In lesser hands this interview would have been a shambles and it probably would have become a forum for the Jabberwocky that flew out of his mouth, but this interview with Senator James Eastland (D-Mississippi) gives some idea just how entrenched, how arrogant and how racist the bloc of Senators known as Dixiecrats were.

I am still hot on the trail of the infamous (and somewhat legendary) Meet The Press interview with Senator Bilbo, another Dixiecrat from Mississippi who proudly proclaimed his membership in the KKK in 1946. But until I find it, this will have to do for the Mississippi contingent who made up the States Rights South in the 1950's and 60's.

A sampling of the interview:

Lawrence Spivak: “Senator, by what inalienable right do you ask certain freedoms for yourself and the other white people of Mississippi that you refuse to grant to the Colored people of your state?”

Sen. James Eastland: “ Why they have all the . . .there is no discrimination. Now, I believe in full economic equality, for every man.”

Spivak: “You say there is no discrimination . . . .

Eastland: “Wait, wait, just a minute now. For every man, regardless of race. But there are social questions and we do have a problem that we think we know more about than people who do not have that problem, And that we think the system of segregation is in the best interests of both races. It doesn’t mean . . it’s not based on any doctrine that one man is superior to another. It’s not based on any doctrine that one man is better than another, but that experience has shown that both races develop their own culture and develop better when they’re separated, because there is more to this question of race than merely the color of a man’s skin. There are different characteristics, different traits.”

And it stays pretty much the same for the entire interview.

This interview comes just about a year before the Central high school integration confrontation in Little Rock Arkansas. But you can see just how deeply the resistance was and what a political thorn these Dixiecrats were in the side of any Civil Rights reform on a Federal level. Which is certainly one reason the struggle lasted so long. The irony in all of this is that Eastland rose very high in the ranks of the Senate and, in addition to being second in line of succession to the Presidency in case of emergency he was also the longest serving Senator, having retired in 1978. In short, he wielded an enormous amount of power.

Here is Meet The Press with Senator James Eastland from January 29, 1956.

I suppose it should come as no surprise to anyone the adage "Leopards don't change their spots" has nothing to do with politics. However, in the case of Ronald Reagan, it would seem (at least in the eyes of his fervent supporters and those entrusted with re-writing history) he was never anything but the personification of Conservatism and hardline Right Wing ideology.

Well, no. There was that blip in the radar during the FDR and Truman years where Ronald Reagan was a big New Deal supporter as is evidenced by this campaign address on behalf of Truman's re-election bid in 1948 as well as the election of then-Mayor Hubert Humphrey to the Senate in Minnesota.

Ronald Reagan: “The profits of corporations have doubled, while workers wages have only increased by one quarter. In other words, profits have gone up four times as much as wages. And the small increase the workers did receive was more than eaten up by rising prices which have also bored into their savings. For example, here’s an Associated Press dispatch I read the other day about Smith L. Carpenter, a carpenter in Union Springs New York. Seems that Mister Carpenter retired some years ago thinking he had enough money saved so that he could live out his last years without having to worry. But he didn’t figure on this Republican inflation which ate up all his savings. And so he’s gone back to work. The reason this is news; is Mister Carpenter is ninety-one years old. Now take as a contrast the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey which reported a net profit of two hundred and ten million dollars, after taxes, for the first half of 1948. An increase of 70% in one year.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

A very visible presence in the political world of the early 1950's, Estes Kefauver gained a reputation for his Crime Committee hearings. He would later be tapped as running mate to Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 Presidential campaign. But here is he, giving a postmortem to the 1950 midterm elections in this 1950 episode of Meet The Press.

Lawrence Spivak (Meet The Press): “Senator, there are many Democrats who believe that your crime investigations had a marked effect upon the elections. What do you think?

Sen. Estes Kefauver: “Mister Spivak, I think the Democratic Party deserves some control for fostering this committee to investigate. I think we may have done some harm to the immediate candidates in some parts of the country. But on the whole, I believe the American people approve when any Administration is trying to do something to clean up one of the greatest menaces that we have in America today. So it works both ways.”

Kefauver is all but forgotten now, but there was a time he wielded an enormous amount of influence around Capitol Hill and his Crime Commission had just as many admirers as detractors. Such is the case of politics - you can't please everybody.

I suppose you could say Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson was a man of many contradictions. An advocate for Civil Rights, who supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964, he was also opposed to Japanese relocating on the West coast after World War 2. An advocate for a Foreign policy that believed evil should be confronted with power and a firm believer that the U.S. should be a force for good in the world inspired many of his aides (among whom were Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams and Douglas Feith) as well as Ben Wattenberg, who was Jackson's political aide during his unsuccessful runs for President in 1972 and 1976. Jackson, along with fellow Senator Ted Kennedy opposed Gerald Ford's request to end price controls on oil. Jackson was also an advocate of increased military spending and earned the nickname "The Senator From Boeing" because of his strong ties with the defense industry.

Jackson died while in office, of a heart attack in 1983 shortly after delivering a press conference on the occasion of the shooting down of Korean Air Flight 007 and his condemning the Soviet Union for its action.

This recording, an episode of ABC News Issues and Answers from September 9, 1973, features Jackson speaking on a number of subjects of interest at the time - primarily the energy crisis, the wheat sale to Russia and our economy.

Sen. Henry Jackson: “I for one want to help the President in every way possible. The American people expect the Congress, and they expect the President to act responsibly in this period ahead. There’s three and a half more years of the administration, we have nothing but trouble in the domestic areas, inflation, the economy, energy. You’ve got the problem of the Middle East. We’ve got the serious situation along the Sino-Soviet border and I think the American people expect us not to be petty partisans and I’m going to do my part regardless of what goes on. Now one of things I think they need to do is to give serious consideration in bringing in some new people, especially in the economic area. It’s in the economic area where there has been nothing but a mess and confusion. I think there needs to be some improvements in the Department of Agriculture. My lord, we have the admission now from Secretary Schultz that we got burned in the Russian wheat deal. Why, to hear Mr. Butz, he says it’s the greatest thing since the beginning of anything. And I must say that it was a disaster and I’m not sure that the Department of Agriculture is getting geared up to meet what I think is a serious problem, this year and for the period ahead there’s a world-wide shortage of grain.”

Fascinating stuff, considering the legacy Jackson has left behind.

Who would have thought?

1952 was certainly an interesting election year. Since Harry Truman declined the run for a second term, it blew the playing field wide open for both Republicans and Democrats.

The radio documentary, first aired on June 2, 1952, the day before the California and South Dakota primaries.

What's curious about this primary, the last one until the respective Conventions, it features none of the eventual Presidential candidates on the ballot. The Republicans were voting for California Governor Earl Warren and the Democrats were voting either for Estes Kefauver or a ballot originally intended for Harry Truman. Eisenhower was late in declaring his intentions and there appears to be no word about Adlai Stevenson, both would eventually become their party's Presidential candidate. Which just goes to show you how much the election process has changed over the years.

This half hour broadcast analyzes the upcoming election and features a number of interviews with key members of both parties as well as how the individual voter feels.

There really are no parallels to draw between the '52 election and the '12 election. It seems as though the entire political process has become unrecognizable in the sixty years since.

And maybe that's the problem.

An interesting week in history, starting with a Democratic sweep of the midterm elections. Making gains in the Senate and achieving a 2/3 majority in the House, the election was characterized as a mandate and a repudiation of the Nixon years and resulting Watergate scandal. Republicans moaned otherwise. On the one hand saying it signified the end of the Republican Party (again) and on the other hand saying it was the Republicans being blamed for the economy (again). Yes, well . . .Nixon who?

The rest of the world was going through the usual upheaval. With Secretary of State Henry Kissinger returning from an 18 day tour of diplomatic hot-spots, not the least being the Middle East where Peace negotiations were lumbering along while the PLO were getting ready to make a debut at the United Nations. The Conference on World Hunger opened in Rome and the OAS met in Quito Ecuador to discuss ending diplomatic and economic embargo's of Castro's Cuba.

On the domestic side - Lt. William Calley, who put My Lai on the map was released from prison after receiving a Presidential Pardon for his role in the massacre. And an Ohio Federal Judge acquitted 8 National Guardsmen accused to shooting students at Kent State in 1970.

Another week where the world seemed destined to fall off it axis, but somehow didn't. As reported by CBS News and The World This Week for the week ending November 8, 1974.

While the 1976 Democratic Convention was underway, and the nomination of Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was a fait accompli for the top slot. Presidential hopeful California Governor Jerry Brown was out of the running, even for consideration to the vice-Presidential slot, CBS Radio's long-running (and badly missed) political talk show Capitol Cloakroom devoted it's July 17th program to a panel interview with Brown discussing, among other things, what he saw the issues were in the 1976 Presidential race.

Jerry Brown: “I have a sense that there’s more to this problem than reorganization of the Federal Government, and I think there’s more to the problem of just trust in our institutions. I think Mr. Carter is very right when he says we’ve got to restore trust and that’s a major problem, but the question is; why is there all this distrust? And I think it’s because our philosophy, our premises and the way we do business is becoming further and further removed from the reality of America as go down the road to the end of this century. We are an economy heavily dependent on arms sales, on waste and obsolescence and increasing consumption of things we don’t need. And in a way that puts tremendous pressure on the carrying capacity of our air and of our water and our land. And unless we face up to those ecological constraints, then we’re in for a very rude awakening. Some people think the environment is a cosmetic issue. Whether the lawn is green or the sky is blue. I consider it a matter of biological survival.”

Not a combative interview, but certainly one where no punches were pulled. And Brown gave as good as he got. It's interesting to draw comparisons to the Jerry Brown of today and the Jerry Brown of 35 years ago during his first stint as Governor of California. How much has changed and how much has remained the same. Although, to be fair, the California of 1976 was the California before Prop. 13 and the questions of survival now are a bit different. For one thing, our infrastructure hadn't collapsed - it's interesting to notice how Brown talks about the condition of New York streets and buildings, decrying the conditions of a city that had gone through a bankruptcy months earlier. Thirty-five years later, California is now in that boat.

The times, they do change.

With yet another Government shutdown looming, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the last one - the one that lasted a while in 1995. The last time the Republicans had a majority and got everyone in an uproar. Finger pointing everywhere. Accusations flew like confetti and the Government shutdown and sent some 800,000 workers home.

It ended badly and it will most likely end badly again, but there are those who just loves them some chaos.

So, as a reminder . . .here is the news via NPR's Morning Edition for November 14, 1995.

Continuing a historic look back at various midterm elections, here is a sampling of the midterm election of 1978 from CBS News - November 7-8, 1978.

What's interesting about this particular election is how it's interpreted in retrospect. At the time the Democrats had done very well as the result of high approval ratings of the Carter Presidency and it's indicated in the broadcast of November 8th 1978 and data from the election period substantiates that with a 52% approval rating and 36% disapproval with 12% undecided. However, recent depictions of that election claim it's because Jimmy Carter wasn't that popular and that the Democrats were on the verge of losing to the vast shift to the right America was undergoing that it was a clear defeat for the Democrats. But, by all accounts that appears not to be true. A loss of 15 seats in Congress, but still maintaining a majority, with leadership under "Tip" O'Neil and 277 seats going to the Democrats.

So depending on who you're getting your information from, the 1978 midterms were a screaming defeat, a stunning upset or a mandate to stay the course.

History always runs the risk of being re-written.